Accreditation
Accreditation is the process in which certification of competency, authority, or credibility is presented.
Organizations that issue credentials or certify third parties against official standards are themselves formally accredited by accreditation bodies (such as UKAS or IAS); hence they are sometimes known as "accredited certification bodies".[1] The accreditation process ensures that their certification practices are acceptable, typically meaning that they are competent to test and certify third parties, behave ethically and employ suitable quality assurance.
Fields involved
Accreditation processes are used in a wide variety of fields:
- Accredited International Credentials
- Accredited investor
- Accredited in Public Relations
- Accredited registrar
- Construction
- Diplomatic accreditation
- Educational accreditation
- Higher education accreditation
- ACGME (USA)
- List of recognized higher education accreditation organizations
- List of unrecognized higher education accreditation organizations
- Accreditation mill
- List of unaccredited institutions of higher learning
- Pre-tertiary education accreditation
- Higher education accreditation
- Email sender accreditation
- Food safety
- Healthcare
- Information assurance
- Personal trainer accreditation
- Professional certification
- Systems engineering
- Translating and interpreting
- US EPA TSCA VI §770 accreditation
Accreditation standards
Many accreditation bodies, such as IAS, operate according to processes developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as specified in ISO/IEC 17011.[2] Accredited entities in specific sectors must provide evidence to the accreditation body that they conform to other standards in the same series:
- ISO/IEC 17020: "General criteria for the operation of various types of bodies performing inspection" (2012)
- ISO/IEC 17021: "Conformity assessment. Requirements for bodies providing audit and certification of management systems" (2011)
- ISO/IEC 17024: "Conformity Assessment. General requirements for bodies operating certification of persons" (2012)
- ISO/IEC 17025: "General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories" (2005)
See also
- Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education
- Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education
- Authentication
- Certification
- Certification and accreditation
- Higher education accreditation
- Homologation
- Quality assurance
- Quality infrastructure
- Standards organization
- Verification and validation
- International agencies
- International Certification Accreditation Council
- International Council on Educational Credential Evaluation
- International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation
- National agencies
References
- USDA ISO Guide 65 Program Accreditation for Certification Bodies Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service, August 9, 2007
- ISO/IEC 17011: "Conformity assessment. General requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies" (2004).
